Identity
Exhibition 05.11.–28.11.2010
With Deniss Kacs, Mareike Maage, Markus Wendling, Andreas Feddersen, Gabriele Rabe
Curation Andreas Feddersen
For many of us, the search for an identity is a life-mission. No longer certain about where our ego is centered, we resolve in making multiples or splits of ourselves.
We often expose ourselves on our websites or social networks in a variety of functions. We gloss over our insecurity by dazzling multimedia presentations of ourselves, we define ourselves through the daily process of elimination of oncoming stimuli in the social networks: I like, I do not like, I’m a fan of, I add as friend or I delete from friends.
The works shown in this exhibition from 05th–28th November swirl around these above mentioned points. Identity as a patchwork of encounters with different people and places, in different stages of life is, e.g., the theme of the work of Gabriele Rabe, where she grants others the possibility of talking about her and judging her. Who is Gabi Rabe? is a collage of ten different positions about the artist.
Who is Henning Straßburger? Markus Wendling depicts him as a painter at one moment, but a pop singer or a conductor at the next. Is Straßburger at any given time only one of these figures or is he always all of them at once? In this video installation, you do not see a fixed identity, but multiple concurrent identities, all of which reside within Henning Straßburger. He splits the “multiple personality” Straßburger on its individual components, to disclose how classical genres have dissolved into the cross-media world and the genre thinking has become obsolete.
In her work pendant Mareike Maage makes visible two of the myriad personalities, of which most people are made up. Using the example of her own image, the artist demonstrates how these two parts of her self wrestle each other, love each other and hurt each other. The outcome is entirely in their hands, but it remains unclear, which of the two personalities gains the upper hand.
We believe that we only “overcome” the finiteness of life by accomplishing things in life that cause other people to talk about us posthumously. In his work “obituary,” Andreas Feddersen anticipates this desired state and throws an ironic reference to the question of how important we are and even how much influence the gaze of others has in guiding our actions.
Will I be famous? If so, what for? Will future generations remember me? These questions will be asked on the evening of the vernissage by personal obituary editors. The result will then be presented in a formal ceremony.
Deniss Kacs dares a frontal attack on our cultural identity! In his interactive video installation Goethe’s poems are being recited by foreigners who don’t speak German fluently. However he chose them as video tutors, whose words are repeated by the visitors in a small photo booth, and recorded via webcam as well as a microphone.
Souvenir is the title of his work since every visitor of this photo booth can send the recorded souvenir-video from Berlin via mail to friends or to beloved ones around the world. The German visitor is now requested to decipher his native language. Since it is almost impossible to reproduce the original text, a new text is created. The visitor inevitably gets into a creative process and becomes the creator of a new poem that arises, freely associated, however in phonetic relation to the original text.
One thing is for sure: the question on identity does not have answers. It is a question that has to be asked over and over again in different directions.